Norway’s Petter S. Roselund (The Heavy Water War) is attached as head-writer to the spy series Hamilton.

The two high-end dramas Hamilton and supernatural drama Crypted, both in development, are the first projects coming out of the newly established Swedish production company Dramacorp backed by Germany’s Beta Film.

The company is headed by Patrick Nebout and Mia Sohlman (co-creator of Blue Eyes).

Hamilton (10x44'), is a co-production between Dramacorp and Swedish IP-rights company IRLC. It is based on Jan Guillou’s best-selling books, featuring Swedish spy Carl Hamilton.

Nebout said: “High-concept stories don’t come much better than Jan Guillou’s  Hamilton novels. With this project, we’re moving beyond the classic Nordic Noir crime genre into a contemporary, chaotic world of espionage, paranoia and the geopolitical power game that is being played anew between Scandinavia, Russia and the US — a Cold War 2.0, if you like, but without the ideology. That said, Hamilton isn’t a Scandi version of James Bond. Our show will have complex, nuanced, character-driven plots with echoes of some of the great Seventies conspiracy movies, such as The Conversation or Three Days of the Condor.

“The main character evolves in an international environment so we will see a number of languages used in an organic way,” stressed Nebout. 

The French/Swedish producer says he has attracted a lot of interest from major Scandinavian and international players and expects to close a deal with a key partner in the run-up to MIPCOM.

Jan Guillou said: “A number of feature film adaptations have been made of Hamilton over the last 20 years, but I have always felt that a TV series would be the perfect format for developing the complexity of Carl Hamilton’s character and the plots.“

The series Crypted (10x44’) is co-produced by Helsinki-based Fisher King Production (Bordertown, Nymphs). It is based on an original idea by French graphic novel author Sylvain Runberg, known for his comics book adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series.

“We’re targeting young adults so the series will clearly be a genre piece with horror elements and echoes from graphic novels as for the tone,” Nebout told nordicfilmandtvnews.com.

The English-language show will be shot in Finland and should benefit from the new tax filming incentives to be introduced in 2017.